


Songbirds and Dogtags

by raeofsunshin



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: I woke up to this in my note, M/M, i am sad, it’s just Vauge text but you know- sad, you get to be too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raeofsunshin/pseuds/raeofsunshin
Summary: There’s a harmony missing in the song.
Relationships: Bertie/Gunpowder Tim (The Mechanisms)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Songbirds and Dogtags

Bertie taught Tim to sing. Well, it wasn’t so much taught as it was absorbed. He sung to distract himself, and what was Tim to do but listen?

They were so young then, the two of them. Before the war truly started, still joking about moon men. Tim’d met moon men now, they weren’t so funny anymore.

Tim rememberers sneaking out at night to climb to the top of the building. To stare up at the moon and watch the reflection in Berites eyes. Bertie sang of shadows and lost love, of blood and whiskey. Drunk on the stars overhead Tim drifted in the sound waves of his voice.

Tim started singing along when the soldiers around them began dropping like flies. It was a way to forget, as well as a way to rememberer. Remember those who’ve fallen, forget you could as well.

D’Ville and the Soldier sang as well when they came along. It kept them alive in someway, kept them human. At least as human as the Soldier could be. Tim wondered if he could keep Bertie safe with his own untrained song.

Bertie kisses him like a serenade. As if he was created for this express purpose, to bring joy even as the Kaiser destroyed the tunnels. Tim resounds in symphony, he’s not sure how much longer he’ll be able to.

There’s birdsong over head. Tim hasn’t heard birds in a long time, and likely never will. The only sound he hears is the quiet song of Berties breath, strained and airy. He reaches a blood stained hand up to Tim’s face as he bleeds out, pulls them together for one last kiss. Tim responds like an audience awaiting an encore.

The encore never comes, instead come the harsh rhythms of ash and blood. Tim sings songs of violence in hopes of forgetting the pain, tearing through moon men like tissue paper. He ends the songs of D’Ville and the Soldier, or at least he thinks he does until he sees them in the finale.

The moon is no more in the same beat that Tim ceases to be.

Then everything feels wrong, he’s awake again. And they’re singing, and all he can think is that there should be another voice in this song. But still Tim sings, ever awaiting an encore but unable to end the show.

**Author's Note:**

> Why does 3AM me hurt me in this way.


End file.
